Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A)
On January 3, 2011, the Canadian Competition Bureau was reviewing a recent business merger. CCS Corporation Inc. (Tervita) had acquired Complete Environmental Inc. (Complete). Prior to its acquisition by Tervita, Complete had received regulatory approval to operate a secure landfill site in Northeastern British Columbia (NEBC). However, a complaint about the purchase was filed by SECURE Energy Services Inc. (SECURE), one of Tervita's competitors. The complaint claimed that the price Tervita paid for Complete was well above fair market value, and that the purchase would eliminate a competitor in the NEBC market. At the time, only two secure landfills operated in NEBC. Both were owned by Tervita, which provided a wide-range of waste management, recovery, and disposal services to the North American oil and gas industry. The Canadian Competition Bureau had to evaluate the economics underlying Tervita's decision to pay a premium price for Complete. It also needed to determine whether the acquisition violated the Competition Act, or whether the complaint was merely a frivolous case of "sour grapes" stemming from SECURE's own failure to acquire Complete.
Swot Analysis of "Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A)" written by Brandon Schaufele, Ken Mark includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Tervita Complete facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Tervita Complete, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Tervita Complete operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Tervita Complete
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Tervita Complete
Strengths Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Tervita Complete in Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Learning organization
- Tervita Complete is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Tervita Complete is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Tervita Complete
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Tervita Complete does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Tervita Complete has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Tervita Complete has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Training and development
– Tervita Complete has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Tervita Complete are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Tervita Complete has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Tervita Complete to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Tervita Complete is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Tervita Complete to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Tervita Complete to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Tervita Complete is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Brandon Schaufele, Ken Mark can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Tervita Complete has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Tervita Complete is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Tervita Complete has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Tervita Complete has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A), is just above the industry average. Tervita Complete needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Brandon Schaufele, Ken Mark suggests that, Tervita Complete is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Lack of clear differentiation of Tervita Complete products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Tervita Complete needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Tervita Complete is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Tervita Complete needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Tervita Complete to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Tervita Complete, firm in the HBR case study Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Tervita Complete has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Tervita Complete 's lucrative customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Tervita Complete has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A), in the dynamic environment Tervita Complete has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Tervita Complete has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Tervita Complete is planning to shift buying processes online.
Opportunities Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) are -
Buying journey improvements
– Tervita Complete can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Tervita Complete can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Tervita Complete can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Tervita Complete is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Tervita Complete can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Tervita Complete operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Tervita Complete to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Loyalty marketing
– Tervita Complete has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Tervita Complete can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Strategy & Execution segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Tervita Complete can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Tervita Complete can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Tervita Complete to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Tervita Complete to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Tervita Complete can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Tervita Complete to increase its market reach. Tervita Complete will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Threats Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) are -
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Tervita Complete in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A), Tervita Complete may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Strategy & Execution .
Increasing wage structure of Tervita Complete
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Tervita Complete.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Tervita Complete can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Tervita Complete can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) .
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Tervita Complete is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Tervita Complete needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Tervita Complete can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Tervita Complete with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Strategy & Execution field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Tervita Complete can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Tervita Complete business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Tervita Complete demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Tervita's Acquisition of Complete Environmental Inc. (A) is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Tervita Complete needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
